03

The same day I bought the cane-back chair with the hole, I found this little gem for $17.50. It was in perfect shape but needed to be painted and reupholstered (it had a chartreuse velvet fabric on it before–even on the arms of the chair).
After removing the seat and yanking the fabric from the arms with a screwdriver and pliers (it had been stapled down), I followed the same process to paint the chair that I used on the cane-back chair but did this one in Krylon’s ivory gloss paint. I cut new foam for this chair as well and covered the seat cushion in a Sultana jute burlap but before securing the fabric on the back of the seat frame with staples, I recovered the old buttons and used the original holes to tuft the recovered seat.

The pillow is actually an old throw cushion covered in a tea towel and secured with Stitch Witchery.

26

I picked up this gem at a Salvation Army for $7.50. I naturally gravitate toward anything with caning, and although this chair had a rather large hole through the back, I figured I could fix it–or enlist an expert to do it.

But I do know my limits. There are some projects I won’t tackle, not many, but some. I decided to leave the recaning of this thrift-store find to the pros at Woodmasters Workshop, but I asked them not to stain the caning so I could paint it.

I removed the seat cushion and sanded the entire chair but didn’t touch the fragile caning. Then I primed it with Kilz interior oil primer and let it dry for 24 hours.

I moved the chair out of direct sun light, which can cause spray paint to bubble and sprayed four sweeping light coats of Krylon’s gloss spray paint in cherry red, allowing about 45 minutes of dry time between each coat and sanding any drip marks away gently with a 220-grit sandpaper block. I sealed the chair with Minwax’s water-based polycrylic protective gloss finish.
The original foam was extremely rigid and not comfortable at all. I bought new foam, used the old foam as a template and cut it out with that handy Japanese flush cut saw I used on our wall. An electric knife would work too, but I like the control this saw offers. I recovered the seat in three-quarters of a yard of Braemore Silsila Curry fabric.